Subtitles of the Movie

The Property Inspector, I believe, is one of the most important interface component elements in most of Adobe's products, and Dreamweaver is no exception, although it sometimes takes a bit of convincing of my students. I cannot imagine trying to complete my Dreamweaver work without it. So in this movie, let me review some of the more important features and techniques you'll need to learn in using the Property Inspector. In short, the Property Inspector lets you examine and edit the most common properties for the currently selected page element, such as text or an inserted object. Notice that on this page, as I select different objects, the Property Inspector changes. For example, I have a layer selected here, and in the Property Inspector, I can manage my layer properties, such as the location, the dimensions, the Z-index; which is the stacking order; I can apply a background image to that layer, background color, as well as overflow settings. If I select the graphic, I can modify the graphic properties, such as the source of the graphic, the link, target, vertical and horizontal spacing, the dimensions. I can even edit the graphic; look at that little symbol of Fireworks there. If I click on that, it'll launch Fireworks and I can edit that graphic, and then when I'm done, click on Finish, and it will update that image right there where it sits in that layer. I also have quite a few formatting options for text. Notice if I select some text in the table, I can add bold, italic, alignment options; I can link the text to something, I can set up bullets. Perhaps the most useful portion of the Property Inspector is this section right here. I can apply a style to that text. I can also open up the CSS panel by clicking on the button there. Set up wrapping options, horizontal and vertical alignments. If I click on the table, notice that this now changes to table properties, including the number of rows and columns, the width of the table, whether it's in pixels or percent, any cell padding or cell spacing, alignment, borders, background colors, border colors, background images, and so on. You'll find these icons often in the Property Inspector. This first one is the ability to point to a file to create a link or to add a BG image to that. You also have a browse for file icon that will allow you to browse for a file to include in the BG image. Notice that you've got these same icons here when I click on the image for the low source file that I can include with that image. Again, there are the Point to File icon and the Folder icon for browsing for the location of that source file. And there's really quite a bit of property settings that you can do from the Property Inspector instead of using the menu up here. Notice that for the picture, I have additional icons here for optimizing, cropping, setting the brightness and contrast, sharpening the image; it's really quite a useful tool. All it will take is a short time, I believe, in working with Dreamweaver, and you'll find just how useful the Property Inspector is. So I usually keep it in my workspace here at the bottom, generally is where I have it; sometimes I'll keep it as a separate floating window so I can move it about my workspace, a little bit more convenient. But Dreamweaver conveniently, at least the Windows version of Dreamweaver, lets you conveniently place it there and anchor it on the bottom of your workspace. Let me now move on to the next movie and review the very many panels and panel groups that you have available, accessible via the Window menu here. So let me now move on to the next movie and cover CSS styles, databases, bindings, files, assets, results, references, histories, frames, and much more of the other panels in the Dreamweaver CS3 workspace.